Herman lives in Atima, a village of 150 houses, in Santa Barbara, Honduras. He works as a coffee farmer but he believes the work is running out due to a coffee disease he calls “rust”. The coffee season only lasts 4 months a year, from November to February. During the coffee season, Herman earns 100-200 lempiras (US$4-8), for 8 hours of work, an income which supports his wife and five children. For the remainder of the year, he tells me the owners of the farms pay people to their liking, usually 80-100 lempiras (US$3-4) per day. Herman tells me has to pay 1,500 lempiras (US$60) a month to rent the land on which he works. He also has to pay for the seeds and fertilizer. This makes it extremely difficult to survive.
Herman is worried about the mines that are exploiting the land.
“Supposedly Honduras will end up like a desert,” he says.
It is widely reported that mining in Honduras is linked to water contamination, deforestation and environmental degradation, human right violations, as well as conflict and violence due to land grabbing.
Herman is worried that the Honduran government wants to privatise health and education. He believes the president, Juan Orlando Hernández, is becoming dictatorial, controlling all the powers of the state and supported by the armed forces.
“He was re-elected without consulting the people,” Herman says.
The dubiously run 2017 election was called a “low-quality” election by the Organization of American States, which called for fresh elections hours after President Juan Orlando Hernández was declared the winner. The Hernandez government suppressed the subsequent protests which resulted in at least 17 deaths.
“Honduras is like a war,” Herman says. “Inequality is awful and the families fight with each other. Some of them are in the government, earning a better life and earning a salary. But most of us are just being jerked off.”
Herman heard about the caravan from a televised news segment. When Herman heard that the caravan was leaving he told his 17-year-old daughter, “Let’s go.” They took some money and left his wife and 4 other children at home. His youngest child is 2 years old.
“Nobody likes to leave their family alone and without food,” Herman says.
Herman has tried to reach the US ten times but each time he attempted he was caught by Mexican authorities. He can’t afford a coyote so he takes the cheapest and most dangerous route north: hitching a ride on “The Beast” freight train. The last time he tried to cross was two years ago.
He has family in the US but he doesn’t expect them to help him.
“What I think is that God will allow me to enter the United States to work, but on my own. There is no support, only God.”
His faith in God also allays his concerns for his daughter’s safety.
“If something happens to her, it has to happen to me too. All or nothing. Only God.”
The caravan was not organised by any one person or one group. According to Herman, the people of Central America are going through a crisis of leadership. They their countries en masse, an exodus of people.
They left by the mountains because the Honduran government would not let them leave.
“They want to privatise our freedom to go to another country,” Herman said.
They followed the road to Ciudad Hidalgo on the Guatemalan side of the Mexico-Guatemala border. When they reached the border blockade, Herman and his daughter spent 3 days on the bridge not believing they could enter Mexico. People told him to go.
“Let’s move!” they shouted.
In the end he saw that there was no other way, so he and his daughter crossed the river on two big tires. When he arrived in Hidalgo City he saw there were thousands of people in the caravan.
Herman believes the Mexicans have been so kind to the Hondurans because they know what it’s like to be poor and have not become “money-sick”.
“For God there are no borders. For God everything is freedom but in this world the earthly laws are dominating. If the kingdom of God was for the millionaires, we the poor would already be in hell. But the Bible says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Herman believes that Donald Trump is ready to shoot the migrants but Herman is willing to approach border knowing this.
“Donald Trump is a super millionaire who has no compassion or pity for us poor people. We are not a gang of thugs. We are looking for a new future for our family who are suffering in our country. I am a man of work, but I can not carry out my work in Honduras. Let us arrive together so that we can talk to Donald Trump’s heart and if he has a heart of stone, let God use his little finger and it will soften.”
